


A Watched Watch doesn't Tick

by Dawnwind



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-18
Updated: 2011-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A boring stakeout and a bored Starsky combine for some interesting discussions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Watched Watch doesn't Tick

"I don't think this thing is working," Starsky proclaimed, staring at his wristwatch with expectation. He shook his wrist, frowning. "Must be running slow."

"What time to you have?" Hutch asked patiently, keeping his eye on the garish purple stucco house directly across the street while he fished his pocket watch out of his back pants pocket.

"Two-oh-five," Starsky said, "and thirty seconds."

Glancing briefly at his own timepiece, Hutch nodded. "That's the right time."

"Are you sure?"

"Starsky! Look, check mine." Hutch handed over a gold watch with a dangling chain, still focusing on 273 Parsimony Ave. He and Starsky had been enduring 12 shifts on a round the clock stakeout of the house for the last three days and were both bored out of their minds. Although the police department brass apparently felt it was a good idea to keep Maritza Tolliver under observation on the off chance that her boyfriend, Eddie Diamond, would make an appearance, Hutch was doubtful. Diamond was wanted for a string of bank robberies where he'd shot and killed both security guards and customers alike, but his crimes hadn't warranted such a full court manhunt until his last caper. The fact that one of the innocent bystanders he'd murdered was the California Governor's youngest son, a lad attending college on a football scholarship, had earned Diamond the sobriquet of 'Most Wanted'. His blatant disregard for human life caused the FBI profilers to term him a sociopath with probable feelings of superiority over mankind. Thus Hutch found it highly unlikely that Diamond would visit his old stomping grounds simply because his girlfriend was due to give birth in the next few days. Still, stranger things had happened.

"Maybe yours is losing time, too?" Starsky persisted, comparing the two timepieces. "Time can't possibly be moving this slowly."

"Starsky, the sun has passed its zenith and is moving westward to the ocean. 'General Hospital' is on TV--I recognize the theme song after three days!" Hutch pointed to the headset he wore to listen in on Tolliver's house. "And all across the city school kids are gleefully preparing to escape their classes for home. It's 2:05."

"Well, not anymore." Starsky dangled Hutch's grandfather's watch by the chain, letting it swing in a gentle arc like a Vaudeville hypnotist.

"Why not?" Hutch hissed through gritted teeth.

"'Cause it's 2:07 now." Starsky grinned brightly, giving the pendulum enough momentum to almost magically flip back into Hutch's outstretched hand.

"I'm getting a headache."

"You want me t'listen for a while? I like 'General Hospital'." Starsky plucked the headphones off Hutch's head, smoothing down the mussed blond locks before donning the headphones himself. "I really got into it when I was laid up last year."

"Where's the aspirin?" Hutch asked wearily rubbing his forehead. He was glad to take a break from the intense concentration needed to monitor the house.

"Under the pizza box?" Starsky suggested peering through the long-range binoculars that were permanently directed at the plate glass living room window of Tolliver's house. Bay City PD had commandeered the two bedroom ranch style at 272 Parsimony which mirrored Tolliver's for the stake-out, but there was little furniture and every piece of equipment in the littered living room was property of BCPD. However, Starsky, Hutch and the other detectives assigned to the watch had brought in beanbag chairs, fast food, magazines, sleeping bags and pillows for the long slow shifts. "She's knitting booties or somethin' for the baby while watchin' the tube."

"I think it's a hat." Hutch pushed cold pizza aside to locate the painkillers for his aching brain.

"Could be," Starsky agreed absently. "Could I have the last piece of pizza?"

"Starsky, it's been sitting out since noon."

"So?" Starsky waved an inpatient hand until it was filled with a slice of pepperoni. "So have you and there's nothing much wrong with you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hutch huffed, downing his pills with water from the tap.

"Nothing! S'a good thing Maritza's makin' that baby hat. Did you know that babies lose heat from their head?"

"That explains a lot," Hutch deadpanned, leaning on the bar that connected the front room to the kitchen.

"D'you think she'd going to breast feed?"

"How should I know?"

"It's the best food for a newborn. I read in the newspaper that over 50% of kids don't get enough calcium and vitamins, and milk consumption is on a decline because soda is so easy t'get." Starsky declared, munching on his pizza while peering through the binoculars. "Even at school and stuff."

"Milk was all we ever had at home, until I was 12 or 13," Hutch mused, suddenly craving a tall, cold, glass of the stuff, and a warm, gooey Toll House cookie just like Mom used to make. "We were never allowed Coke or pop."

"Yeah? We always went down to the soda fountain after school. Coke with cherry syrup...and a Baby Ruth."

"And so began your excellent nutritional habits. Obviously nothing's changed in twenty odd years."

"Hey," Starsky looked up, his face alight with sudden inspiration. "Maybe Coke should start addin' calcium?"

"Starsky, I think the idea is to discourage soda drinking, not make it more appealing." Hutch snorted, rummaging through the debris for something he could drink. In desperation he began tossing empties into one brown paper bag and crumbling up food wrappers into another. This method finally yielded a single can of 7-Up still attached to the plastic collar that had once held it's long gone brethren. He liberated the green can and took a long drink. The warm soda fizzed up his nose making him cough so Starsky obligingly pounded on his back until he could breathe again.

"Take a nap, you look beat," Starsky advised. "Scorpio and Luke are chasing after some international spy, I'm good for the rest of this show and then maybe she'll switch over to 'Days of Our Lives' at three. Shane Donovan and Roman can chase after another spy. Those soap opera towns are loaded with 'em."

"You don't have to twist my arm." Hutch made himself as comfortable as possible in a lime green vinyl beanbag chair for a brief snooze. "Wake me up in an hour."

"At three ten, on the dot."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

After three hours on point, Starsky was beginning to droop, his eyes at half-mast and in danger of closing completely. Hutch had awakened long ago and plunged into the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which one of the other detectives had left behind. He watched with fascination over the top of his novel as Starsky did everything but poke toothpicks under his lids to keep them open. One time Starsky's head fell so far back the cord for the headphones stretched too tightly and the whole apparatus tumbled off his head, jerking him awake.

"Need a break?" Hutch asked with amusement.

"Oh, man," Starsky knuckled his eyes, yawning. "All of GH, two half hour game shows, a phone call to her birth coach Donna, two trips to the bathroom and a long session reading the baby name book--she's considering Cary Archibald if it's a boy..."

"In honor of Cary Grant."

"How'd you get that?"

"Archibald Leach is Cary Grant's real name. She's obviously a big fan. Remember she watched 'Father Goose' and 'Houseboat' yesterday?"

"Hey!" Starsky grinned beatifically. "You do know some trivia!"

"What's the girl's name?"

"That one's a whole lot better--Sophia Lauren."

"Another movie star--although it's Lo-ren." Hutch emphasized the pronunciation of the last name.

"I know that, maybe she doesn't--she spelled Lauren over the phone to Donna just to be sure." Starsky wiggled in place. "She never does anything but sit at home watching TV and movies. How much more boring can this get?"

"Just think how bored someone would be if they were watching us right now," Hutch suggested, refreshed and ready to take watch after his nap and ten pages of the most brilliant detective of the Victorian age.

"That's a horrible thought. You think Diamond knows we're watching so he's not coming?" Starsky stretched, standing up so Hutch could slide into the chair after him. His vertebrae creaked when he bent at the waist.

"Could be, Starsk. I think this whole thing is a colossal waste of tax payers money." Hutch twitched the binoculars to follow Maritza's pregnant waddle to the kitchen behind the living room. Although he couldn't see her once she went past the identical bar to the one in the house he was using, the hidden mike picked up sounds of her humming while she stirred and chopped. "Do you know how much this exercise in frustration must cost?"

"Payin' us for hour after hour of nothingness." Starsky plunked down on the candy apple red beanbag chair, lazily extending his legs straight out in front of him. "You ever think that maybe Einstein was wrong?"

Totally mystified by the apparent non-sequitor Hutch shook his head. "I can't say I've ever tried to out think one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century, but I take it you have. Impart your wisdom upon the masses, O Wise One."

"Smart ass," Starsky muttered. "Y'know the whole E equals MC squared thing?"

"I've heard of it," Hutch said dryly.

"That time where you are stays constant even when you're movin' real fast..."

"Past lightspeed."

"Yeah, so that if I went to--say Pluto--and you stayed here and then I came back, I'd be the same age but you'd now be old."

"That's the theory," Hutch agreed, frankly impressed at Starsky's ability to explain the complicated idea so simply.

"And that maybe, if we could go faster'n lightspeed into the galaxy we could find other worlds, just like ours, maybe even parallel worlds..."

"You been watching Carl Sagan again?"

"I think that's what's happened here."

"What?"

"Time stopped for us cause we slipped unnoticed into a parallel world where everything is chaos."

"I straightened up the kitchen," Hutch pointed out. "We're in Control once again."

"Thank you, Agent 86," Starsky said sarcastically. "Chaos theory says that time is like a string all balled up and all the points touch and we could move in and out of those places where they touch."

"You're beginning to frighten me. This is way too scientific and philosophical for the Starsky I know." Hutch groaned. "Have some food. It will restore the balance to the universe. Eat a Baby Ruth."

"None left," Starsky struggled to rise out of the lumpy beanbag. "Dropped into the endless black hole that is Brick Washington's mouth."

"Ah, no wonder he looked so content when he left and you do not." Hutch chuckled remembering that their fellow officer had been eating a candy bar on his way out the door at 8 A.M. "Then go out and get something. We've still got three hours left here and you get grumpy when you're hungry."

"I do not."

"Do, too." Hutch pulled a twenty out of his hip pocket. It was the last money he had until payday on Friday but if food placated Starsky, the loss of funds was worth it.

"Hit 7-11, or the place around the corner, but don't get me anything greasy."

"See, now that joint on the corner just proves my theory."

"Your theory of chaos or Einstein's relative...?"

"Who was Einstein's relative? Did he have any kids or family, ya think?"

"Starsky!"

"Sparky's Drive-In looks like it was dropped here out of the '50's. Those girls in shorts skating around with trays. It's all a parallel universe, I tell you."

"Get out of here!" Hutch roared going back to the mundanely sane life of Maritza Tolliver. She was still in the kitchen.

"Back in thirty minutes. You can time me, but considering that time stands still here, I'll be much older when I get back since I got to leave."

"You already are older," Hutch teased. He smiled to himself as Starsky slammed the door on the way out, crossing into the binocular's field of view before sauntering down the cracked sidewalk to the corner. Starsky did have a point, though. Waiting for action on a long stakeout always made time slow down until it seemed to moving 'slower than molasses in January' as Hutch's maternal Grandmother used to say. Come to think of it, it was she who'd always made those great chocolate chip cookies, not his mother.

The silence in the room loomed even louder without Starsky's non-stop chatter to idle away the time. Weirdly he missed the odd ball conversation and flashes of brilliance as much as he missed Starsky's friendly presence. Maritza's rhythmic chopping resonated through the headphones in time to her slightly off-key rendition of a Carpenter's hit. Hutch almost had the urge to sing along but maintained his dignity, unable to bring himself to 'la-la-la-la-ing' the time away. Karen Carpenter had a great voice, far better than Maritza Tolliver, but he preferred more bluesy stuff.

Starsky's arrival, almost exactly a half-hour later, brought noise and bustle back into the darkening house. "Hey, didja know that having too much magnetism can stop a watch?"

"That's an old wives' tale, Starsky," Hutch said, investigating the turkey melt in his bag. Good choice on Starsky's part given the limited fare at Sparky's.

Dropping down into the red beanbag again, Starsky started in on a giant burger oozing catsup and mustard. He dipped a French fry into the red and yellow mixture and nodded happily. "No, really. My watch stopped on the way down the block, I swear t'God."

"Probably needs a new battery." Hutch peered over at his partner's wrist. Sure enough the Yamamoto 3005, with glow-in-the-dark hands, waterproof band and shatterproof crystal had stopped at ten minutes after five, shortly after Starsky had left the house.

"There was this guy selling watches on the corner, so I bought one." Starsky ate two more fries before digging a Rolex knock-off out of his jacket pocket and removing the Yamamoto. The new watch had a thick gold band that was far too big for Starsky's wrist but he examined it proudly. "He explained that some guys just got too much magnetism, screws up the watch works and time just stops--happens all the time."

"Not to you," Hutch scoffed. He sampled his sandwich, surprised at the freshness of the garnishing tomato and lettuce. "You sure that thing's not hot? I'm surprised you'd buy a watch off a shyster on the corner."

"Not some shyster, it was Bugsy," Starsky answered through a mouthful of burger. "He's got his own reasons for wantin' to keep an eye out for Diamond, but he ain't seen him either."

"Bugsy's not exactly in the same league as McMahn's Jewelers. What reasons?" Hutch asked, almost afraid to get caught up in the discussion.

"Pois-sonal," Starsky laughed, imitating the man's New Jersey accent. "Wouldn't tell me. But I get the feelin' he's moonin' over Maritza." He slapped Hutch's questing fingers when they dipped into the French fry bag, but didn't make any more protest when the bag was soon lighter by four fries.

"Maritza's made herself a salad and is sitting down for the six o'clock movie," Hutch reported, sighting the dark haired woman sitting down on her couch with a big bowl of leafy greens, what appeared to be garlic bread, and a glass of milk. "And you'll be happy to know she's getting her calcium."

"Terrific."

Hutch hunched his shoulders to relieve the ache in his back from sitting far too long in the same position and moodily watched Maritza settle into watch 'Casablanca'. He'd always liked that movie but the angle of the TV made it difficult to see the picture so mostly he had to make do with the sound. Surprisingly, Starsky had lapsed into silence after finishing his sandwich. Hutch glanced back but Starsky appeared to be nearly asleep, his head slumped down with his chin resting on his chest. Of course, that was about the only way anyone could sit in the detestable chair. Turning back he banished thoughts of a comfortable bed, and maybe a beer, for fear of falling into a stupor from the slow evening.

"Americans eat 18 acres of pizza every day." Starsky announced so abruptly Hutch gasped in surprise. He straightened so quickly his back protested with a stab of pain.

"Where did you get that gem?"

"Off the pizza box," Starsky pointed to the discarded box poking out the top of the trash bag. He rolled his eyes with a sigh, resting his chin on one fist. "Hutch, I'm turning to stone here, something's gotta give soon or I won't be responsible for my actions."

"Well, it's no wonder you're turning to stone after an acre of pizza, one burger and three donuts all in one day," Hutch admonished. "Get up, move around. Do jumping jacks."

"Can't--didn't anyone ever tell you not to exercise right after eating?"

"That's swimming. You won't drown doing jumping jacks."

"She hasn't had a visitor in three days and never goes anywhere except to buy food." Starsky stood to scrutinize Tolliver's house over Hutch's shoulder. "Diamond ain't coming. You know what they say, 'A watched pot never boils'."

"That's patently untrue," Hutch said just to get a rise out of his partner but he kept his eye on Maritza who had finished knitting her bonnet and was now stitching white satin ribbons to the edges. "If you put water over heat, it will boil whether you watch or not."

"You're just a ray of sunshine, you know that?"

"It's simple science, you're the one who invoked Einstein earlier."

Starsky crossed in arms in consternation apparently not pursuing the subject. "What movie is she watching?"

"'Casablanca'."

"Hey, trade off, I love Bogart." Starsky gave Hutch a little shove with one hip already gazing through the viewfinder. "Ah, this part is great when Sam plays the song and Rick thinks about Ilsa.... A kiss is still a kiss...As time goes by..." he crooned.

"Just as long as you spare me your Bogey impression." Hutch got up, heading for the bathroom.

"You don't like my style, schweetheart?" Starsky curled his lip in a poor approximation of the actor.

"Your style's fine as long as it doesn't cramp mine," Hutch shot back.

Starsky sat down on the still warm wooden chair; his attention totally focused on the half of the TV screen he could see. Behind him the phone rang shrilly, but whomever was at the binoculars was not supposed to abandon their post in case the suspect took that moment to arrive. "Hutch! Get the phone!"

"Give me a second," Hutch grumbled, still zipping his pants as he stumbled into the room. "H'llo? Captain Dobey, nice to hear from you. Any news?" A broad smile transformed his face as he listened to what the detective Captain had to say. "Really, that's wonderful. So we can break camp?"

"What?" Starsky begged, "What'd he say? We're done? We can leave this dump?" He jumped up, performing three jumping jacks in quick succession. "Halle-lu-yah!"

"Diamond's been found--in Oregon." Hutch hung up, looking around for the shoes he had discarded earlier in the day. "He robbed a bank in Portland over a week ago, shot the guard and a teller. Police in a small town near there found him holed up with a woman."

"And they didn't tell us?"

"Took a while for the our arrest warrant to filter up there to such an out of the way town I guess, but get this," Hutch shoved his feet into his shoes without tying them. "He was making time--with Clarissa Tolliver--Maritza's sister!"

"Well, now he's gonna be doin' time, for the next foreseeable future." Starsky grinned happily already beginning to dismantle the binoculars from the tripod. "Good-bye Maritza, hello Huggy's!"

You get that packed up in..." Hutch consulted Starsky's gaudy new watch by grabbing hold of his wrist. "Under ten minutes and I'll buy you a tall one." It didn't matter that he'd used his last twenty for their dinner, he had a running tab at The Pits. Hitting the off button for the tape cassette recorder, Hutch coiled the extension cord from the palm of his hand around his elbow and back again.

"Hutch, I got the feeling this could be the start of a beautiful friendship." Starsky quoted, packing up with all speed.

Glancing up from stuffing the cord and audio equipment into the nylon carrying case, Hutch caught his best friend's eye and smiled warmly. No matter what they did, from adrenaline pounding high-speed chases to the utter boredom of round the clock surveillance, life was good when he was doing it with his partner. The start of this friendship had begun years before but he hoped it would never end. "It's timeless, buddy."


End file.
